


Slipping

by Fauna96



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, i'd say pre-slash, just a little before 5x08, just ed trying to understand what he wants i guess, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 00:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18399407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fauna96/pseuds/Fauna96
Summary: The fact is that Oswald has his tie skew, and Ed is already leaning in to fix it like he would have done in that other life, and it’s there that he realizes it is not good. That the memory of those few serene (happy) months can’t and mustn’t let down his guard, because Oswald is still Oswald: unreliable, selfish, untrustworthy.





	Slipping

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. I wrote my first fic about these two. I have nothing to say except that... it's pratically canon? And it's set just few days before Mr Penn, when Ed is still trying to fix himself around Oswald.

Takes little time, too much little time, slipping back in the familiarity, in the intimacy from when Oswald was mayor, Ed his chief of staff and everything was extremely simpler. It takes so much little time that Ed doesn’t even realize it. One day he’s still suspicious, makes his own food and, if he does sleep, he does with one eye open; the next day, he finds himself eating with Oswald and listening to his complaints about everything and everyone as if the murder attempts, the betrayals, the sorrow have never been.

The fact is that Oswald has his tie skew, and Ed is already leaning in to fix it like he would have done in that other life, and it’s there that he realizes it is not good. That the memory of those few serene (happy) months can’t and mustn’t let down his guard, because Oswald is still Oswald: unreliable, selfish, untrustworthy. This, though, doesn’t prevent Ed from reminding him, from time to time, his business tasks (Ed never forgets anything, Oswald does or pretends to do, same difference), doesn’t prevent Ed from rolling his eyes when he hears Oswald yelling, with a face that wish to be annoyed ( _he_ is working) and instead is just resigned and amused.

Ed wonders if Oswald feels the old thought-sharing and familiarity retie the strings too or if it’s just his own sensation; he wonders if, every time Oswald brings him the dinner in the laboratory and stays there until Ed has eaten up everything, it is pure opportunism or… well, or it is not. Once, Ed thought that behind Oswald’s eyes any emotion could be read, or at least, that he, Ed, could do it. Now he doesn’t know anymore: Oswald’s eyes are still pale and shiny like glass, but transparent no more, if they have ever been (but of course they have been: every time he spoke about his mother, when he felt outraged, when he promised to be honest with Ed, even if they would be again at the murder attempts… _Of course_ he was honest, in that moment. Ed knows it, because he was honest too, and because he knows that the lump he felt in his throat matched the tears shining among green).

However, beside _everything_ , it is comforting knowing that at least one person would notice his death, even if just because it would cause not few hitches to their escape plan (even with the blueprint and the instructions, Oswald cannot for his life tighten a screw) and it is comforting having a more or less safe roof over the head and hot meals abundant and almost regular, and a human presence. The truth is _Oswald_ is comforting, even in his most irritating traits: the yelling, the lateness, messing around his tools.

To be even more truthful… he has really missed some of Oswald’s habits and he hasn’t even realized until he has noticed (again) that Oswald bites his nails when he’s thoughtful or nervous and that he’s fixated, fixated with abundant and frequent food, while Ed, if he’s working, lets hunger, tiredness, soreness slip away until he finishes.

And it because of this that he has ignored Oswald, his more and more sullen look and the cooling plates before having added all the changes to the initial blueprint, fixed the model and written down one or two other ideas. At that point, truthfully, he isn’t really hungry, but around Oswald a threatening aura is gathering.

\- Eat – he orders and Ed notices that Oswald hasn’t eaten either: he’s waiting.

Ed lowers his gaze on the plates and he’s surprised to see goulash: it means that Oswald has bothered to cook during half afternoon. Well, this is dinner, right?

Just because of this, the fact that Oswald has cooked, has brought him dinner and waited for him, Ed takes up a forkful because, beside the little appetite, it must be said that cold goulash is little tempting.

Oswald stares at him, then a snort that is more a stifled laugh escapes him and he takes the plate from his hands. – Cold sucks, we need to heat this up, Eddie -.

Eddie. These days, Oswald calls him Ed, as always; Nygma only when he feels to be hit where it hurts by one or another Ed’s comment and they start bickering. But Eddie… he hasn’t called him like that since ages, since that other life, and even at that time it was pretty rare, just in the fondest (or most exasperate) moments. And yet, it has slipped light on Oswald’s tongue, without a hesitation through the sentence, as if Ed had skipped dinner because he was lost behind papers that could have waited for tomorrow. It is a nickname full of nostalgy and fondness and… an attempt of something left unsaid, like the cups of tea on the worktable and the untidy memos that Ed leaves on Oswald’s desk (this is a very old habit that he cannot and, most importantly, doesn’t want to quit).

The real problem, Ed admits perching on a chair and watching Oswald heat the goulash while chatting (about what doesn’t matter: Ed enjoys more observing the faces and the gestures Oswald makes), is that between him and Oswald, he has always been the best liar; but the most coward too. And for once, just once, before leaving Gotham and going each for their own road, he’d want to have Oswald’s courage, and being sincere. Totally sincere.


End file.
